Results

Currently, the chassis assembly contributes about 73 percent of the overall weight of a 14.63 m long haul trailer. This paper presents alternative design concepts for the structural floor of a van trailer utilizing sandwich panels with various material and geometric characteristics of the core layer in order to reduce its weight significantly below that of the current design configuration. The main objective of the new designs is to achieve optimal tradeoffs between the overall structural weight and the flexural stiffness of the floor. Various preliminary design concepts of the core designs were compared on the basis of a single section of the core structure. Six different designs were analyzed by weight, maximum displacement and maximum stress under bending and torsion loads. Each concept was kept uniform by length, thickness, loading and boundary conditions. Each design concept was examined through testing of scaled model for floor assemblies.

A computer simulation was developed to investigate the effect of wind on test track estimation of heavy truck fuel efficiency. Monte Carlo simulations were run for various wind conditions, both with and without gusts, and for two different vehicle aerodynamic configurations. The vehicle configurations chosen for this study are representative of typical Class 8 tractor trailers and use wind tunnel measured drag polars for performance computations. The baseline (control) case is representative of a modern streamlined tractor and conventional trailer. The comparison (test) case is the baseline case with the addition of a trailer drag reduction device (trailer skirt). The integrated drag coefficient, overall required power, total fuel consumption, and average rate of fuel consumption were calculated for a heavy truck on an oval test track to show the effect of wind on test results.

The importance of fuel economy and emission standards has increased rapidly with high fuel costs and new environmental regulations. This requires analysis techniques capable of designing the next generation long-haul truck to improve both fuel efficiency and cooling. In particular, it is important to have a predictive design tool to assess how exterior design changes impact aerodynamic performance. This study evaluates the use of a Lattice Boltzmann based numerical simulation and the National Research Council (NRC) Canada's wind tunnel to assess aerodynamic drag on a production Volvo VNL tractor-trailer combination. Comparisons are made between the wind tunnel and simulation to understand the influence of wind tunnel conditions on truck aerodynamic performance. The production VNL testing includes a full range of yaw angles to demonstrate the influence of cross wind on aerodynamic drag.

Battlefield reconnaissance is an integral part of today's integrated battlefield management system. Current reconnaissance technology typically requires land based vehicle systems to observe while stationary or, at best, significantly limits travel speeds while collecting data. By combining current Canadian Light Armored Vehicle based reconnaissance systems with the Center for Electromechanics (CEM) electronically controlled active Electromechanical Suspension System (EMS), opportunities exist to substantially increase cross-country speeds at which useful reconnaissance data may be collected. This report documents a study performed by The University of Texas Center for Electromechanics with funding from L3-ES to use existing modeling and simulation tools to explore potential benefits provided by EMS for reconnaissance on the move.

With growing globalization of the economy, to gain a competitive edge in world markets shortening the product development cycle is crucial. Virtual product development is, therefore, being actively pursued in the off-road vehicle industry. To implement this process successfully, the development of comprehensive and realistic computer-aided methods for performance and design evaluation of off-road vehicles is of vital importance. To be useful to the engineer in industry for the development and design of new products, the computer-aided methods should take into account all major vehicle design parameters and pertinent terrain characteristics. They should be based on the understanding of the physical nature and the mechanics of vehicle-terrain interaction. Their capabilities should be substantiated by test data.

In this paper, we are interested in developing a robust tire-force estimator for heavy duty vehicles. We use a combined model of the articulated vehicle: a yaw plane model for the chassis motion and a vertical plane model for the axles. In the proposed method, we make use of the on-board available sensors to which low-cost sensors are added. In order to optimize the sensors configuration, a robust exact differentiator is used in order to obtain accelerations from the measured velocities. Once the differentiation is obtained, the model is inverted to determine the unknown input forces. The approach is validated by comparing the estimation results to those given by the software simulator prosper .

Hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation in the development and test process of vehicle dynamics controllers requires a real-time tractor-trailer simulation model. The hitch coupling must be numerically stable to ensure real-time simulation for various driving maneuvers, particularly at the vehicle's handling limits. This paper presents a robust implementation of tractor-trailer coupling. The equation of motion is formed using a novel formulation which is a combination of Jourdain's Principle and the Articulated Body Algorithm. The paper shows that a robust model for a real-time tractor-trailer simulation can be achieved with the proposed method. Moreover, the approach presented is suitable for modular modeling, is successfully implemented and can also be used as a basis for flexible system definition with an adjustable number of trailer axles.

Models for off-road vehicles, such as farm equipment and military vehicles, require an off-road tire model in order to properly understand their dynamic behavior on off-road driving surfaces. Extensive literature can be found for on-road tire modeling, but not much can be found for off-road tire modeling. This paper presents an off-road tire model that was developed for use in vehicle handling studies. An on-road, dry asphalt tire model was first developed by performing rolling road force and moment testing. Off-road testing was then performed on dirt and gravel driving surfaces to develop scaling factors that explain how the lateral force behavior of the tire will scale from an on-road to an off-road situation. The tire models were used in vehicle simulation software to simulate vehicle behavior on various driving surfaces. The simulated vehicle response was compared to actual maximum speed before sliding vs. turning radius data for the studied vehicle to assess the tire model.

Tractor operators prefer to drive more comfortable tractors in the recent years. Thus, tractors optimized for noise and vibration aspects are found to have a better acceptance by the market. This study comprises the correlation and verification of low frequency acoustic performance of a tractor cabin and development for interior noise. In order to correlate the model, finite element analyses and tests were performed simultaneously in order to update the model in accordance. Low and high frequency ranges have been covered. Upon completion of the finite element model, data from tests were used to update the model and acoustic responses for low frequency range (20-200 Hz) were recovered. Then, results from analysis were compared against the subjective comments and objective levels. With the help of this work, a methodology for correlating complex models with local information was developed.

This paper discusses a design of experiments (DOE) analysis that was performed to understand relevant factors that influence the acoustic performance of a sound package part used in the commercial vehicle industry for the floor mat application. The acoustic performance of the sound package part which is a double wall system and constructed of a barrier and cellular decoupler material is expressed in terms of sound transmission loss (STL). An experiment was designed using the Taguchi DOE technique with three factors and three levels to acquire the STL data and is discussed in the paper. The results of the DOE analysis and the confidence in the model are discussed as well as the benefits of predicting expected STL performances are mentioned in the paper.

NVH is gaining importance in the quality perception of off-highway machine performance and operator comfort. Booming noise, a low frequency NVH phenomenon, can be a significant sound issue in an off-highway machine. In order to increase operator comfort by decreasing the noise levels and noise annoyance, a tuned mass damper (TMD) was added to the resonating panel to suppress the booming. Operational deflection shapes (ODS) and experimental modal analysis (EMA) were performed to identify the resonating panels, a damper was tuned in the lab and on the machine to the specific frequency, machine operational tests were carried out to verify the effectiveness of the damper to deal with booming noise.

Refuse Trucks are used to pick up garbage from houses. These trucks have huge robotic arms connected to the frame which are operated by hydraulic mechanism operated by the driver sitting inside the cab of the truck. The operator of the truck controls the robotic arm using a lever. Once the truck is positioned aside the garbage can, the operator moves the robotic arm outwards, grabs hold of the garbage can, picks up the garbage can and dumps the garbage into the truck. During this operation, the frame articulates and moves due to the frame suspension causing the cab to move along with the frame. This operation is performed about 1000 times a day, 5days a week for 12 years which could result in some amount of damage to the cab over its life. Since the time rate of application of the forces during the Automatic Side Loading operation is small compared to the lowest flexible mode of the cab, modal amplification is considered unlikely.

The increasingly stringent emission legislations provide a continuous challenge for the non-road market. In parallel to transient test cycles, increased emission durability as well as real driving emissions must be fulfilled. The enormous diversification of engines within the different power classes as well as the specific operation requirements regarding various duty cycles, robustness and durability, requires specific solutions to meet these legal limits. The publication shows a cost efficient, reliable and durable approach based on the example of a tractor engine jointly developed by Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd. (M&M) and AVL. It was found that a naturally aspirated (NA) application equipped with common rail and combined with cooled exhaust gas recirculation (EGR) is able to fulfill all legal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Tier 4 requirements with a minimum effort on the exhaust aftertreatment side by using only a diesel oxidation catalyst.

The paper illustrates the development of a hydraulic hybrid powertrain concept for off-highway vehicles, which is the result of a three-year program at Dana's advanced technology centers. Engineers have conducted extensive simulations and tests while equipping a demonstration vehicle to determine feasibility, develop advanced features, and quantify benefits of hydraulic hybridization for traction. The system concept and operation as well as its development process are illustrated, focusing the system engineering principles and on the model-based approach to system design, control, and energy analysis. Experimental results are provided.

Paddy farming in India needs extensive water usage. Due to the rapidly declining ground water and ever increasing monsoon uncertainty, there is significant drive on water conservation for paddy farming through sustainable agriculture practices. The wide variability of irrigation water in Indian rice field, as high as 160 mm, necessitates an extra 100 mm of water in the field to provide complete water coverage. This is primarily due to inaccurate manual land leveling, often practiced in Indian paddy farming. In the present work, architecture of laser land leveler has been created by integrating low cost electronics, hydraulics and GPS technology. This paper will provide an overview of the current practices and suitable operating mode to meet the future demand on land leveling. The presentation would compare the laser land leveler with GPS land leveler solution architectures. The technological differences along with individual merits and limitations would be detailed.

Fillet and plug weld are commonly used in structural applications in commercial heavy vehicles. This paper is primarily concerned with an investigation of the full field deformations fields in fillet and plug welds using three dimensional digital image correlation (3D-DIC). Two identical vehicle parts are constructed using a fillet weld for one specimen, and a plug weld for the other. The specimens are loaded under quasi-static conditions with simultaneous measurement of load, displacements and strain gage measurements. Strain gage locations are selected based on the results of a finite element analysis model. 3D-DIC measurements are constructed using a two camera setup. Thus, 3D-DIC measurements are compared to strain gage measurements and finite element predictions. The effectiveness of the non-contact full field method is evaluated for application to studying the weld details considered and potential for fatigue damage and durability.

Facing a competitive and globalized market and with increasingly demanding customers, companies must constantly seek the development of practices in the development of new products. One of the current practices is the adoption of modularity. In that sense, the objective of this paper is to conduct an analysis of this practice in a Brazilian company, which manufactures agricultural machinery. The applicability of modular design in current products is focused. Therefore, a case study approach has been chosen. First, a review of the scientific literature was conducted, followed by field research, for collecting data based on interviews with product engineers and technical documentation. The case study shows the applicability of the modular design concept in a combine header, by increasing the number of repeated components. The modular header approach facilitates the implementation of engineering changes and allows greater standardization of components.

Commercial vehicle payload depends on the client for which the vehicle fleet owner is operating. Load carriers like flatbed trailer offer the flexibility to be loaded with a large number of light payloads or a few numbers of massive payloads. Such load carriers have to be evaluated for various possibilities of loading patterns that could happen in the market. The objective of this work is to evaluate flatbed trailer for its structural strength for different customer application cases, using computer simulation. Structural load cases due to payloads like containers, steel coils and cement bags are arrived at. Static structural analysis using MSC Nastran is performed to evaluate for the worst customer loading pattern from structural stress point of view. This paper also describes a simplified method for simulating the effect of trailer suspension, tractor suspension and the fifth-wheel coupling in the analysis whose detailed modeling is not possible at the concept level.

This paper deals with the techniques of reducing noise in agricultural tractors. Noise reduction in agricultural tractors is an emerging concern and apart from meeting the noise norms it helps in increasing the productivity of farmers. Noise is also a factor affecting the health of the farmers. Two major European regulatory requirements are driver ear noise level and passer by noise level. Of the two regulatory requirement, driver ear noise is critical, since the limit is 86 dB (A) compared to 89 dB (A) of passer by noise limit which is measured at 7.5 meters from tractor. Various strategies for noise reduction are discussed in this paper including reduction at source level and passive solutions. Passive solutions are used where the timeline for development is short. Various passive solutions like acoustic foam design are discussed. Finally with the combination of active and passive solutions, driver ear noise target was met successfully.

An investigation was carried out to examine the influence of austempering temperature on strain hardening behavior of austempered ductile cast iron (ADI). Cylindrical tensile specimens of nodular ductile cast iron were austempered by the conventional single-step austempering process at several temperatures. Strain hardening exponent (n values) of all these specimens were determined over the entire plastic deformation regions of the stress-strain curves. Optical microscopy and X-Ray diffraction analysis were performed to examine mechanisms of strain hardening behavior in ADI under tensile loading. Test results show that strain hardening behavior of ADI is influenced by austempering temperature and microstructural variables.

Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is used to examine the efficiency of 74 front wheel assist agricultural tractors from three U.S. manufacturers. The outputs of drawbar horsepower and power takeoff horsepower are modeled in a constant returns-to-scale framework using three productive performance inputs (fuel consumption, slip, and center of gravity), and one price input, namely, retail tractor price. The results suggest that by and large, John Deere tractors are more DEA efficient than their competitor's tractors. However, competitor's tractors that are DEA efficient are most often the top benchmarks for DEA inefficient tractors. These results suggest that while John Deere appears to produce many quality tractors, competitor's like CNH and AGCO produce a few tractors that may be of even higher quality.

1. ABSTRACT The New Kubota Grand L30 Series Compact Tractors are powerful, user-friendly compact tractors that have advanced functions to provide the maximum performance. Many new features such as IntelliPanel enable users to obtain high workability, comfort, and operability. IntelliPanel is an advanced function that displays information on a liquid crystal display to help users' with operation and maintenance. An electronically controlled multi-gear GST (Glide Shift Transmission) enables users to choose gears for 12 travel speeds using one lever, during travel without operating a clutch. An ECU (Electric Control Unit) controls solenoid valves and a proportional reducing valve to allow for smooth gear changes.

The paper attempts to determine which traction model best fits with experimental data for a romanian lugged tractor tire. Different models for predicting net traction and traction efficiency for off-road conditions were considered. These models assume different tire-ground pressure distributions (constant, parabolic) over the undertread area and different contact patch length calculations. Experiments were conducted and the results were compared to the theoretical data. Two of the models are the best fit with the experimental data; both models assumed a parabolic pressure distribution over the undertread.

Commercial vehicle operators and governments around the world are looking for ways to cut down on fuel consumption for economic and environmental reasons. Two main factors affecting the fuel consumption of a vehicle are the drive route and the driver behavior. The drive route can be specified by information such as speed limit, road grade, road curvature, traffic etc. The driver behavior, on the other hand, is difficult to classify and can be responsible for as much as 35% variation in fuel consumption. In this work, nearly 600,000 miles of drive data is utilized to identify driving behaviors that significantly affect fuel consumption. Based on this analysis, driving scenarios and related driver behaviors are identified that result in the most efficient vehicle operation. A driver assistance system is presented in this paper that assists the driver in driving more efficiently by issuing scenario specific advice.

There are no Indian and International standards on load bearing elements. There is a British Standard which specifies only the load requirements of Headboard, side walls and rear gate in case of sudden braking. This paper specifies in detail the load bearing elements and through Computer Aided Engineering (CAE) simulation, the percentage of load that can be borne by the load bearing elements under different types of load shifting has been determined.

The design and analysis plays a major role for determining the root cause for the problem. Once the problem and its root cause were well defined, the solution for addressing the problem would be made clear. The engine excitation frequency and the chassis natural frequency were coming closer and it leads chassis to resonate. The resonance increases vibration levels at the Tractor footrest which was reducing comfort level of the operator. The vibration reduction methodologies like stiffening the structure, isolating the source from excitation and dampening techniques were studied to reduce vibration levels at footrest. The benchmarking evaluation was done with selected tractor models qualitatively to assess the difference in vibration level perception for customers. The test methodology and data acquisition methodology was formulated and used for better analysis and discussions.

Whole Body Vibration (WBV) of tractors was measured on different surfaces in real world usage pattern of Indian customers on tractors of various capacities. Vibration levels were measured at the interface of the seat and the operator, on the seat base/floor and on the head. The mean weighted Root Mean Square (RMS) values along the different axes, the vector sum of weighted RMS values along the three orthogonal axes, the crest factor, Vibration Dose Value (VDV) and 8 h exposure levels were calculated according to ISO 2631-1. In addition to the above parameters, the transmissibility between the seat base and the seat interface (SEAT) and between the seat interface and the operator head (TR) were also calculated. Finally, these parameters were correlated with the subjective feel of customers which was captured through suitable questionnaires. It is observed that the Indian tractor operators are exposed to WBV that exceeds the cautionary boundaries set in place by the ISO 2631-1.

Exhaust noise of automobiles is one of the major sources of noise pollution. Un-muffled exhaust noise is quite higher than other noise sources of automobile. Therefore, the use of an exhaust muffler is prompted by the need of engine exhaust noise reduction. Insertion loss is the key metric to evaluate the performance of any muffler and it mainly depends upon proper selection of muffler volume which is proportional to engine swept volume. Another major performance evaluating metric is backpressure. Also, shape, size, weight, durability, manufacturability and cost are the secondary but important criteria of muffler selection. Presently, there are many variants of exhaust muffler, having different overall performances (i.e. insertion loss, backpressure, shape, size, weight, manufacturability and cost) used for different variants of commercial vehicle, though engine swept volume is same for all.

High noise at Operator Ear Level (OEL) of tractor is the major cause of fatigue to the operator. With growing competition, and upcoming legislative requirement there is ominous need for the agricultural tractor manufacturers to control noise levels. Objective of the present study is noise reduction on agriculture tractor by identifying and controlling key noise sources unaffecting performance parameters like power, torque and fuel efficiency to meet upcoming noise legislations. Noise Source Identification (NSI) is carried out to identify and rank airborne and structure borne noise sources. The airborne sources such as cooling fan, exhaust silencer and intake are evaluated using elimination method at tractor level. The NSI on engine is carried out separately in hemi anechoic chamber to identify the major noise radiating components by using noise and vibration measurement, sound intensity mapping tools.

In recent years NVH has gained a lot of importance in the commercial vehicle industry as it contributes significantly towards user comfort and also towards the quality perception associated with a vehicle. The in-cabin noise of vehicles is critical towards the comfort and usability for the end user and the sound package installed on the vehicle plays a vital role in determining the levels associated with this attribute, especially the high frequency content. The paper discusses a methodology for optimizing the sound package for performance, cost and mass, for a truck. The approach uses a Statistical Energy Analysis (SEA) based optimization. A virtual SEA model is developed, which is correlated with actual test data. After establishing the correlation, an optimization study is carried out to identify the effectiveness of different materials and material combinations towards in-cabin noise.